Gerson star

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Stolpersteine in Kiedrich in memory of Gerson Stern and his family

Gerson Stern (born July 7, 1874 in Holzminden , † January 15, 1956 in Jerusalem ) was a German writer .

Life

Stern came from an assimilated Jewish merchant family. He attended elementary school in Holzminden . In 1884 the family moved to Elberfeld , where the father became a partner in his brother's textile company. Stern attended grammar school in Elberfeld up to secondary school leaving certificate, after which he mostly worked in business.

In 1917 he married Erna Schwarz (1894–1967) from Metz , the daughter of a wealthy department store owner. From 1920 to 1937, Stern lived in Kiedrich im Rheingau on his own fruit farm in Haus Sönneck , named after his nickname Sönne . His only child, son Joel Stern (1920–1948), was born there. As of 1931, Stern withdrew from business life due to a serious illness. As a devout Jew, he worked as a prayer leader in the Eltville synagogue and was involved in Jewish youth work. From 1936 onwards, Stern and his family tried to emigrate to Palestine and in 1937 they sold the house and estate. After staying in Cologne and Frankfurt, he and his family managed to leave Germany in March 1939 after being arrested twice for alleged foreign exchange offenses and with considerable loss of assets.

In Jerusalem, Stern belonged to the circle of friends around Schalom Ben-Chorin (1913–1999) and Else Lasker-Schüler (1869–1945), whom he already knew in Elberfeld. His brother-in-law was the well-known Israeli botanist Michael Evenari (formerly Walter Schwarz; 1904–1989).

On March 16, 2010, on the initiative of the Kiedricher historical and cultural witnesses, the artist Gunter Demnig laid three memorial stones in the form of stumbling blocks in front of the former home in Kiedrich to commemorate Stern and his family .

plant

Although Stern wrote poetry since his youth, he seems to have made little effort to get his literary works published for a long time. It was only when he had to give up his trade for health reasons that he found a broader audience as a narrator among Jewish readers in Germany for a few years in 1934. His novel Weg ohne Ende is an important contribution to the long-overlooked German-Jewish literature between 1933 and 1939. At that time, Stern began to publish some poetry.

His estate is kept in the Jewish National and University Library in Jerusalem .

Works (selection); First editions

  • Symphony . Poetry series, approx. 1915; as a choral performance, Darmstadt 1935
  • The me in the armchair. Also a dance of death. A sequence of scenes . 1920
  • Path without end. A Jewish novel . Berlin 1934; again in 1999 (see below)
  • The world stands on three things . Berlin 1935; again in 2003, see below
  • Quiet ways. Verses . Jerusalem 1945
  • The scales in the world. Novel of the year 1932/1933 (Hebrew: Mozne ha-'olam , Tel-Aviv 1947), again in 2007, see below

Work edition in individual volumes

Since 1999 an edition of Stern's works has been published by Carl Böschen Verlag , Siegen , edited by Friedrich Voit , Günter Helmes .

literature

  • Rudolf Fenzl: Gerson Stern. Businessman and writer. Citizens of Kiedricher from 1920 to 1937. In: Rheingau Forum . Vol. 9, H. 3, 2000, pp. 22-36
  • Klaus Kieckbusch : The writer Gerson Stern. In: Yearbook for the district of Holzminden . Vol. 18 (2000), pp. 131-152
  • Saskia Schreuder: Dignity in contradiction. Jewish narrative literature in National Socialist Germany 1933–1938. Niemeyer, Tübingen 2002, IDN 965076520
  • Friedrich Voit: German-Jewish literature in the shadow of the Shoa. On the work of the writer and poet Gerson Stern 1874–1956. In: Günter Helmes et al .: Literature and Life. Anthropological Aspects in Modern Culture . Narr, Tübingen 2002, pp. 257-270.
  • Friedrich Voit: Gerson Stern. On the life and work of the Jewish-German writer 1874–1956. De Gruyter, Berlin 2013 ISBN 978-3-11-031567-7
  • Hans Behrens: adaptation, defense, departure. German-Jewish literature between 1935 and 1947 using the example of the narrative texts "The world stands on three things" and "The scales of the world". Igel, Hamburg 2017 ISBN 9783868157161

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Friedrich Voit: The writer Gerson Stern and his novel Weg ohne Ende . Epilogue in: Gerson Stern: Weg ohne Ende , Carl Böschen Verlag, Siegen 1999. ISBN 3-932212-19-3
  2. ↑ Three stumbling blocks are reminiscent of the Jewish Stern family. Homepage of the Förderkreis Kiedricher Geschichts- und Kulturzeugen eV ( Memento from March 6, 2017 in the Internet Archive )

Web links

Commons : Gerson Stern  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Stern, Gerson
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer
DATE OF BIRTH July 7, 1874
PLACE OF BIRTH Holzminden
DATE OF DEATH January 15, 1956
Place of death Jerusalem